


Petrichor

by Catknight



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types
Genre: And moves on from it, F/F, Its really just a background ship, M/M, One Shot, RIP, Same for the other ship, So if you're reading this hoping for some legit Saioumota content, Still, The ships are important to the story so, its sad, mature only for the swearing, oof, sorry but Kaito and Saihara are both dead, theres a lot of swearing, this focuses more on how Ouma copes with that, this is not it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-10-24 20:47:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17711309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catknight/pseuds/Catknight
Summary: It's sad, it's gay, mostly angst, but the endings got a hopeful ring to it so there's that. Sorry, I suck at summary's its basically just a fic about Kokichi coming to terms with the death of his boyfriends as their death anniversary roles around. So, expect sad.This was written by my sister, who does not have an ao3 account. Idk if she'll ask me to post more or not.





	Petrichor

The sound of rain always seemed to piss Kokichi off. The patient, calm drizzle as it gently fell from the darkened, grey spattered sky. The smell of petrichor, one that most people associate with pleasant memories, memories of family and warmth, gave him no such pleasant recollections. No, for him, the rain brought nothing but anger. Anger, and sorrow. Memories of times where he was weak, too weak, so weak, so weak that he couldn’t save them, he couldn’t save anyone, he couldn’t even save himsel- Kokichi scowls, ending his current train of thought with a bitter, choked chuckle. His thoughts are swirling with memories he doesn’t want, doesn’t need, as he stares out the window of his decrepit apartment. The window that won’t ever close properly, no matter how hard he tries to slam it shut, trying to keep the sound of the rain, the warmth of sun, the smell of life, out of his apartment. But it never does. It’s always, always fucking open to some extent. In winter its more than just a little bit inconvenient, as it saps away what little heat the apartment has to it, and in turn, saps away at his paycheck as he turns up the heating system. But it’s not winter right now, no, its spring. Fucking spring. Kokichi hates spring with a burning passion, more then summers spent alone, more than falls spent staring outside and wishing, praying, hoping and more than winters spent curled up, waiting for it all to end. No, he hates spring the most. After all, spring is the season with the most rain. Spring is when it rains the hardest, it rains for long periods of time, drowning him, he feels, in all the fucking water it brings. Somewhere in his thoughts, he knows that that’s not quite true. There was a time when he loved the rain. When he loved the smell of petrichor, when he could come back home after playing the puddles, back to the warmth of the person who would scold him for staying out in that weather, warn him about catching a cold from it, and when he’d stick his tongue out at their nagging, the grin that tugged at the corner of their mouths from fondness- No, he wasn’t going to finish that thought. That time was gone. Over, finished. Ruined. It was never coming back, just like they weren’t. Kokichi sighs, eyes feeling heavy as he continues to stare at the shower outside his window. After a moment of contemplation, he stands up, stretching his arms above his head and arching his back, groaning in satisfaction as he hears a few pops from now cracked joints. With one final glance at the world outside the window pane, he turns and heads towards his bedroom, not wanting to be reminded of anything else, of any other memories he’d rather leave behind to that time. He throws himself on his mattress and falls into a dreamless sleep.

Kokichi decides that he really fucking hates Monday’s, as he glares at the message on his phone, willing it to disappear. It, of course, does nothing of the sort and he groans, already done with the day when it’s only. He squints at the screen, reading the time, and then scowls as he realizes its already one fucking thirty in the afternoon. Determined to put off reading the message for as long as possible, he gets up and starts his morning routine, although its more of an afternoon routine at this point. He stumbles over to the bathroom, scratching the back of his head as he yawns. He moves over to the sink and begins the process of brushing his teeth, grabbing his weekly pill counter. He pops open the Monday tab on it and, once he’s finished spit out his toothpaste, grabs them all, lifting them up to his mouth and swallowing them almost dry, accompanied by the lingering toothpaste in his mouth. Once he’s finished swallowing them, he puts his hand under the faucet and gets a handful of water, bringing it to his mouth and swallows, washing down the taste of the medication and toothpaste. He yawns again, covering his mouth with has hand, before moving out of the bathroom, not bothering to take a shower, he doesn’t see a point to getting clean when no one was going to see him. He moves to the kitchen, steps still slightly lethargic, but also slightly more energetic than before. He sets up his coffee pot, dumping in the cheap beans and pouring in some water, which sloshes rather violently as he basically just dumps the water in. “Oops,” he says aloud to himself, voice sounding tired and completely unapologetic. He pushes the lid down and presses the start button. Soon, the room is filled with the smell of coffee and he takes a deep whiff of it, humming in appreciation. While the coffees brewing, he busies himself, throwing together some food. Well, more like putting a single slice of what’s hopefully not molding bread in the toaster and praying he doesn’t catch the house on fire. He was never really the best at cooking Shuuichi was always better at it then he wa- Kokichi freezes, ice flooding through his veins at the even the thought of his name. He stares, eyes wide, fingers shaking, at the toaster as his lungs are filled with ice. Ice in his veins, ice in his lungs, ice on his lips, eyelashes, fingers, in his soul. Telling Shuuichi it was going to be fine, they were all going to be fine, someone would find them before long, they would be fine. But they weren’t and they both knew it, from the very weak beating of Kaito’s heart, to the stuttering breathes Shuuichi was making, to the whimpers coming from Kaito’s throat, and, an- Pop. Kokichi jumps, tripping over his own lead filled legs as the toast pops up from the toaster, slightly charred and smelling burnt. Kokichi lets out a shaky laugh, eyes filled to the brim with tears as he wrapped his arms around himself, breaths coming in harsh and erratically. He takes a breath, and then another, counting to 4, then 9, then 6 and repeating the process several times, before he finally manages to gain control of himself again. He lets his arms fall to his sides, and closes his eyes for a second, allowing a single tear to fall down his face as he whispers to the empty room, “Fuck Monday’s.” 

It’s nearly three pm by the time he’s finally finished pulling himself together enough, finishing up his meager breakfast and washing the dishes, the way the someone used to scold him for. It’s nearly three thirty by the time he works up the courage to read the message on his phone, hands trembling in anticipation and dread for what it will say. He finally turns his phone and nearly drops it at the mere sight of the amount of messages he’s received in the short amount of time he’s had it off while he was busy doing… things, aka having a near panic attack. Courage waning, he debates just turning his phone back off and pretending he’d never seen any of them. An almost chiding voice in the back of his brain reminds him that he can’t just run away from all his problems, that he’ll have to face them eventually, and however much he petulantly wants to disagree, he knows he can’t. So he moves forward, unlocking his phone and clicking on the first notification, preparing himself for what he’s about to face.

FROM:   
Kaede Akamatsu: Hey Ouma! I know you told everyone that you weren’t coming, and that you wanted to spend Tuesday alone, but I think you should reconsider. I know it’s been hard for you to be around any of us since the accident, but you can’t hole yourself up forever! It’s not what Momota or Shuuichi would have wanted. So.. Please come. Don’t grieve alone. We all miss them. Don’t miss them alone. We’re still meeting at the same place, you know where. I hope to see you there…  
Kaede Akamatsu: And Ouma? We’re.. We’re all here for you, when you need us.  
Kokichi stares blankly at the messages Kaede sent him, before moving onto the next set of messages.

FROM:  
Miu Iruma: Hey bitch boi, fucking answer your phone you little cunt, Kaede’s worried about you and she won’t stop her worrying. You’re not the only one suffering, so stop pretending like you are.  
Miu Iruma: Alright, even someone as beautiful and amazing as I am can admit that that last message I sent you was a little rude and insensitive, considering the situation. I-I guess I’m just a little bit concerned about you. O-only a little! So don’t let it get to your head! But… seriously, please don’t ignore us all and shit. It fucking sucks, what happened, but you can’t let it fucking cloud your head and let it prevent you from living your life. That’s not what those funk munch, limp cocks would have wanted. So, reply to Kaede, and come to the fucking get together already, bitch.  
Kokichi snorts a bit at Miu’s brashness, before moving onto the next set of messages, determined to get through them all before replying to anyone.  
FROM:  
Kiibo Iidabashi: Greetings Ouma-kun! I have recently been informed by Akamatsu-san that you have not yet rsvp’d for our get together. Due to recent incidents, I felt it necessary to communicate with you in order to convince you to join us at our gathering! According to information I have collected from my research in human psychology, it is necessary to spend time with friends and family when you have suffered loss. The grieving process is a long and painful one, but by spending time with and seeking out others who have suffered that loss as well, your chances of healing faster increase exponentially! As such, I truly believe it will be beneficial for you to attend our gathering. I hope to hear that you will be joining us from Akamatsu-san soon!   
Kokichi scoffs, his lips twitch as he struggles to prevent them from turning upwards into a fond smile at Kiibo’s style of typing. “Still as formal as ever, Kiibs,” he whispers fondly, before continuing on to the next set of messages. It goes on like this for a while, it seems the whole class sent him messages trying to convince him to come out. They range from enthusiastic messages like “Ouma! Come to the gathering, don’t leave us hanging!” to slightly depressing ones such as “Man, I know this sucks a lot. You don’t have to come if you feel too much like shit to. We miss you dude, but you don’t gotta force yourself to come,” to even slightly angry ones like, “Come to the fucking gathering you little shit, you’re making everyone sad, and it’s annoying. You may be a degenerate, but all the girls will be sad if you don’t show up, so you better show up or I’ll drag you here myself!” It’s the last set of messages that truly catches his eyes though, and from the moment he reads the name of who they’re from, he knows he’s truly fucked, even without having read the actual content of the messages. With shaking fingers, he clicks in to them, and holds his breath as he reads, heart pounding and lips trembling.   
FROM:  
Maki Harukawa: Kokichi.   
Just that one word alone makes him want to curl up into a ball and hide but he knows he can’t and that he can’t run away from this, from her so he presses forward, reading the rest of the messages she sent him.  
Maki Harukawa: It’s been a year. A whole fucking year of a world without Kaito Momota, without Saihara Shuuichi, living in it. Breathing in it.   
Maki Harukawa: I haven’t told anyone else this yet, and if you tell anyone about what I’m about to write, I’ll kill you and bury your body in a place they’ll never find it.   
Maki Harukawa: I fucking miss them. Every single fucking day. Those two kept me sane, they kept me alive and breathing and hoping. They made everyday worth living, even if it was a day as boring as me threatening to kill them for a stupid joke, even if it was as stupid as another workout where Kaito tried to beef up Shuuichi despite the fact that he was clearly never going to get much stronger. Even if it was a peaceful, boring, idiotic life. It was still a life. And now it’s gone. They’re gone.  
Maki Harukawa: We can’t change it. For a while, I was angry. So angry. I lashed out at everyone, went on more killing jobs. I basically reverted to who I was before I met them. After a while, everyone in class started to move on with their lives. It hurt. I got even angrier at the world, at them. I wanted to hate them. But Tsumugi pulled me away from that. She brought me back from all that anger. She made me remember that there’s still people here. Still people I fucking care about. The world may have stopped for me when those two died, but it kept moving forward for everyone else. I was the one that refused to move. She helped me move again. I can say that it still fucking hurts. I still think about those two, and about all the antics you three got into. But, even if its just by a little bit, I’m moving forward. And that’s what those two idiots would have wanted.  
Maki Harukawa: So I’m going to the stupid get together, where everyone will be fucking mopey and sad as they remember those two. I’ll go even though it will suck, and I’ll be forced to talk about emotions I don’t want to think about. I’ll go, because I want to move forward. For them. For myself. And I know that you still feel stuck, still frozen in place. You and I, we’re a lot alike in that regard. And I know I can’t force you to come, as much as I’d love to come grab you by your mopey, depressed face and drag you here. I can’t do that, because this is your grief. It’s your life. You get to choose how to live it. But I think.. I think you should come. Because they would want you to. Because everyone else want’s you to. Because.. because I want you to. And because you should want to as well.   
Maki Harukawa: Remember Kokichi. Just because they’re gone, and their time stopped, doesn’t mean yours did.  
Maki Harukawa: And remember, if you tell anyone about these messages, I’ll shave your head and burn your collection of figurines.

After an hour of gross, disgusting, embarrassing sobbing, he pulls himself together enough to reply to Maki, a simple okay, and to Kaede, a confirmation that he will be there tomorrow. After all, how could he really refuse to go after reading all that. He spends the rest of the day going through his old photo albums, the ones that he hid in the deepest part of the closet, and occasionally pulled out to throw against a wall and then sob for hours on end and remembering them. And for once, it doesn’t make break down completely looking through them. Though he will admit, only to himself, that he cried several times at certain photos. Its way later into the evening, once he’s settled down into bed wearing Kaito’s old hoodie and Shuuichi’s old flannel pajama bottoms, that he allows himself to believe. That maybe, just maybe, things will be alright again. Eventually.

On Tuesday morning, Kokichi vehemently hates the version of himself from yesterday, that agreed to go to this ‘gathering’. His eyes are crusty, red and puffy from the amount of times he cried on Monday. His hair looks greasy and his skin looks paler then normal, which is saying a lot of Kokichi considering he’s always been a bit paler then average. The paleness brings out the bags under his eyes, which, despite the fact that he did actually manage to get some decent sleep last night, never really go away much to his great annoyance. He grumbles to himself as he turns on the shower, feet tapping against the tile of his bathroom floor impatiently as he waits for the water to heat up. When it’s finally warm enough, he steps in and begins the tedious process of getting clean, which is a bit harder than usual considering the fact that he’d been neglecting to recently due to the upcoming date, you know, the day that his partners died. He scowls, angry that his thoughts are betraying his attempts to be a little more positive and rubs the soap into his arm harder. It takes him another thirty minutes before he’s finally finished, wrapping a towel around himself as he steps out of the shower, and then the bathroom all together. He grabs his phone to look at the time and nearly has a heart attack when he sees that there’s only an hour left until the meeting. He stumbles through the motions of drying off, blowing drying his hair, getting dressed (if he ended up choosing one of Shuuichi’s old white button ups and one of Kaito’s blazers, well, that was really his business you see?) and managing to stomach some toast which, he really should go to the grocery store some time and get some more food because quite frankly, this was unacceptable and he’s pretty sure both Kaito AND Shuuichi would be yelling at him for letting it get this bad. But, they’re not here and it’s up to him to remember to take care of himself. Before, he hadn’t cared much about it, not since they had died and left him all alone to deal with his depression and loneliness by himself but now- Now it was different. He couldn’t just let himself waste away. Not after everything he’s been through. Not after all the effort they both put into making sure he’d get out of it alive. So, with one last look at his apartment, at their apartment, he gives it a firm nod and heads out his front door, a step towards moving forward.

He should have known these fuckers were all going to be so fucking sentimental about it. The moment Kaede sees him, she puts a singular hand to her mouth, tears lining the corner of her eyes, before she rushes over to him and pulls him into an embrace. The joke he’d had on the tip of his tongue dies there, eyes widening at the sudden touch of another human being. It’d been a long time since someone had hugged him, the last time being at the funeral, where everyone was crying and weeping and Kokichi just stood there, staring blankly as the lowered the caskets into the ground. He still stood there, even when they covered the caskets with dirt. Even when the others started to leave. Even when it started to pour, the rain soaking through his then suit. He’d stood there and all he thought to himself was how alone he’d been. But, standing here, with Kaede holding him in his arms and Miu glaring at him as she calls him a cockslut and tells him to stop hogging her girlfriend. Here, as Kaede releases him from the embrace with a gentle grin on her face, tears glinting in the corners of her eyes as she thanks him for coming. Here, where Kiibo walks up to him and greets him with a smile on his face, telling him how truly wonderful it is that he’s come, and how great it is to see him again, even as Kokichi makes a joke and Kiibo gets indignant about it, proceeding to lecture him about his robophobia. Here, where all his friends come up to him and greet him, telling him how happy they are that he came, even with Tenko saying something along the lines of “It wouldn’t be right without you here, even if you are a degenerate.” Here, where he spots Maki out of the corner of his, and gives her a small, knowing smile that she returns, before turning back towards Tsumugi to continue whatever conversation they were having. And it’s here, surrounded by the people that Shuuichi and Kaito loved, that he loves, that he thinks to himself for the first time in a long while. It’ll be okay. And well…. Maybe the next time it rains, he’ll put on his rain coat and boots, and he’ll go splash in those puddles. Because even if Shuuichi isn’t there to scold him and fret over him for going out in the cold weather, and even if Kaito isn’t there to warm him up afterwards with cuddles, as the both giggle while Shuuichi continues to nag him, and then Kaito for encouraging his ventures into the rain. Even if they’re not there…. It’ll be okay. Because he’s not alone. He never really was. And it is at this moment in time, surrounded by everyone he cares about as they talk about what happened to Shuuichi and Kaito, as they share stories, some of them sad, some of them happy, and some of them so stupid that everyone bursts out laughing over it. He allows his time to start again, to move forward, just like Maki said. And, even with his heart still aching so painfully, ready to burst from all the grief, he allows the love into his heart. And he grins.


End file.
